7th Jan 2016 saw the successful beginning of the first of its kind public private partnership (PPP) in India in the area of waste management.

Waste management is a serious issue for all the growing cities in India, so, for the Pune city, Noble Exchange Environment Solutions (NEX) with the renowned Poonawalla Group and the Pune Municipal Corporation have found an ideal solution.

These three organisations came together and now operate a very efficient 300 MT/day organic waste collection & processing system. By using thousands of litter bins, the organic waste is segregated at source. At specially designated collection centres, this organic waste is further sorted, crushed and converted into slurry and with the help of specially designed closed trucks, this slurry is carried away from the city to their state-of-the-art biogas plant on the outskirts in Talegaon.

Here, this slurry is mixed with micronutrients / enzymes and pumped via a sealed system into temperature controlled large digesters where the micro-organisms / bacteria break the waste down and biogas is generated in this process. The gas is directed into the purification system for further processing and what is left behind is organic manure (fertiliser) which is rich in nutrients & is therefore in high demand for agricultural use. The biogas is purified in various stages to remove carbon-dioxide, hydrogen sulphide and moisture thereby improving the methane content in the gas making it the most suitable & economic replacement fuel for LPG in large commercial kitchens, furnace oil in furnaces and petrol in vehicles.

NEX, this project’s technology partner, chose only the best of the equipment right from the crushers, agitators to the high pressure compressors and storage cascades. They opted for 3 nos. CTA28.0-90 from BAUER KOMPRESSOREN India to compress the purified gas up to 200 bar and store in mobile cylinders. This compressed gas filled into the mobile cylinders is then despatched to a variety of users to be used as fuel. These 3 BAUER compressors handling a gas flow of approx. 1000 Sm3/h use the acclaimed PLC based B-Control II for automatic, integrated & user friendly operations. NEX has integrated this compressor control into their overall plant’s central control system making human intervention almost superfluous. Besides the technology being used, the other points that make this plant stand out from others are: (a) modern design, (b) cleanliness and (c) absence of any odour. NEX & their partners have amply demonstrated not only the economic feasibility of this project but also the success of the PPP route in tackling the modern menace of waste, scientifically.

The Serum Institute of India owned by The Poonawala Group (www.seruminstitute.com) is the largest supplier of vaccines to the World Health Organisation, and is amongst the Top 3 most valuable pharmaceutical companies in India. They have manufacturing sites in 5 countries and their products are marketed in 90 countries.